TENDER
Filmmaker Adam Hoelzel delivers a twisted directorial debut at DWF LA 2026 Closing Night film. In TENDER, after coming up with a non-starter scheme to leave his wife and start fresh with his mistress, both Mick and Billie find a way out of their mess after stumbling upon a gold brick in the walls of their house. Billie quietly begins to search the house for more. When they hit the jackpot, it comes with some complicated terms.
Each bar has a UV mark, so selling it outright is not an option. Finding legal loopholes and roping in those around is a carefully choreographed dance between two people who now supposedly hate each other. Paranoia and crossed wires force Mick and Billie to adapt. But an additional player reframes their complex plans.
Jesse Garcia plays Mick with an overconfident air, perfect for the plan the audience knows is insane. Jess Weixler, who plays Billie and also serves as the film’s narrator, is magnificent. She steals every moment on screen with her take-no-shit attitude. I fell in love with Weixler in Chained For Life. Her chameleon abilities are a director’s dream.
Phillip J. McLaughlin‘s editing absolutely delights in establishing the passage of time and the initial plot point in the film’s opening. But, like the entirety of Tender, get ready for a long con. Heolzel sells us the illusion hook, line, and sinker. Tender is a complex cat-and-mouse game. If you can follow the truth, you’re quicker than I am. Well played to everyone involved. I’ve been had.
WRITER/DIR: Adam Hoelzel
PRODS: Sofia Rovaletti, Sonja O’Hara, Farrell Ingle, Theo Bucksey, Michael K. Dwyer, Corey Moosa, Roy Hsu, Grayson Hay
CAST: Jess Weixler, Jesse Garcia, David Koechner, Shakira Barrera, Sonja O’Hara, Robert Longstreet,
Mark St. Cyr, Stephen Ellis
After inheriting a modest house in a dying town, Billie and Mick believe they’ve finally found stability, until crushing debt, old resentments, and a shocking discovery buried within their walls threaten to tear them apart. As the couple is forced into a dangerous alliance to protect their future, Tender becomes a darkly intimate portrait of marriage under pressure, where love, money, and survival blur into something unrecognizable.
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